Two Republican convention-goers were ejected for throwing nuts at a black CNN camerawoman and saying, "This is how we feed the animals," the U.S. network said.

"Multiple witnesses observed the exchange" at Florida's Tampa Bay Times Forum, the news network reported. Convention security and police immediately removed the two people from the arena, CNN said.

The convention released a statement about the Tuesday incident, saying: "Two attendees tonight exhibited deplorable behavior. Their conduct was inexcusable and unacceptable. This kind of behavior will not be tolerated."

The camerawoman and the two convention attendees were not immediately identified.

Modern academics are not celebrated for the clarity and felicity of their writing. One of the most important lessons a postgraduate student can learn—and if he doesn’t learn it soon, he’s doomed—is that academics generally do not write books and articles for the purpose of expressing their ideas as clearly as possible for the benefit of people who don’t already understand and agree with them. Academics don’t write to be read; they write to be published. Typically, the only people who actually read academic books and articles are other academics, who only read them to know what they need to reference in their own books and articles. And that’s not reading; that’s trawling.

Helen Sword, associate professor at the Centre for Academic Development at the University of Auckland, wants to persuade her colleagues that they can do better. She has written Stylish Academic Writing in order to “give courage to academics who want to write more engagingly but fear the consequences of violating disciplinary norms.” But surely the point is that the vast majority of academics don’t “aspire to write more engagingly and adventurously.”

The heavy security presence is understandable. The Republican National Convention is, after all, as perfect a target for terrorists, Occupiers, and acid-filled-egg-toting anarchists as you could imagine. One safety measure is seems fairly gratuitous, however. As I learned this morning while passing through the security checkpoint at the entrance to the Tampa Convention Center (the media's headquarters at the GOP convention), no fruit is allowed inside. I had a banana with me. I ate half of it quickly and threw the rest away. I wasn't even hungry.

But the prohibition on fruit was too perplexing to ignore. "What about, say ... vegetables," I asked the TSA agent manning the checkpoint, in my least sassy voice.

"Vegetables? If you brought in a bag of diced onions, I wouldn't care," he told me.

"Now you're putting two and two together," he told me, as I walked away.

It still didn't make a lot of sense, though. You could throw pretty much anything. I could get up right now and throw a chair at the guy sitting next to me. But, rules are rules.

Or are they? Moments after passing through security, I peeked inside the Google Lounge — a colorful, Wonka-like room full of exotic chairs, a coffee bar, and various computer displays showcasing the many wonders of Google — to find a snack table replete with oranges.

There is some kind of conspiracy going on here, but, like the whole onion I am not allowed to bring into the convention center, one must peel back many layers of deception in order to find the truth. Which seems like a lot of work. I'll probably just stop eating fruit.

Smith, who is challenging incumbent Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) in the November election stated, When a reporter asked Smith to clarify what kind of situation was similar to becoming pregnant from rape, the candidate responded, "Having a baby out of wedlock."

A Republican strategist said something interesting and revealing on Friday, though it largely escaped attention in the howling gusts of punditry over Mitt Romney’s birth certificate crack and a potential convention-altering hurricane. The subject was a Ron Brownstein story outlining the demographic hit rates each party requires to win in November. To squeak out a majority, Mitt Romney probably needs to win at least 61 percent of the white vote — a figure exceeding what George H.W. Bush commanded over Michael Dukakis in 1988. The Republican strategist told Brownstein, “This is the last time anyone will try to do this” — “this” being a near total reliance on white votes to win a presidential election.

I wrote a long story last February arguing that the Republican Party had grown intensely conscious of both the inescapable gravity of the long-term relative decline of the white population, and the short-term window of opportunity opened for the party by the economic crisis. I think we’re continuing to see the GOP operate under an integrated political and policy strategy constructed on this premise. This is their last, best chance to win an election in the party’s current demographic and ideological form. Future generations of GOP politicians will have to appeal to nonwhite voters who hold far more liberal views about the role of government than does the party’s current base.

MEXICO CITY — The federal police officers who shot up an American Embassy vehicle on Friday, wounding two American law-enforcement workers, were detained on Monday as prosecutors determine whether they abused their authority or committed other crimes, Mexican officials said.

The 12 officers were ordered held for at least 40 days while investigators sort out what the embassy called an “ambush.” Gunmen in a group of cars accosted the Americans 35 miles south of the capital as they rode with a Mexican Navy captain to a military training installation in an embassy sport utility vehicle with diplomatic plates.

The embassy has refused to identify the Americans or say which agency employs them.

The Mexican Navy said in a statement that the assailants included federal police officers who were tracking criminals in the area, and Mexican newspapers have reported that all of the shots fired came from the police [...]

Move reveals differences with UK and US, which have been more guarded in their dealings with Syrian opposition groups
By Julian Borger, Guardian.co.uk, August 27, 2012

The French president, François Hollande, has urged Syria's divided opposition to form a provisional government, saying Paris would give it official recognition. The announcement on Monday came as Syrian fighter plane attacks on eastern suburbs of Damascus killed at least 60 people, according to opposition activists.

Hollande's intervention was aimed at increasing pressure on Syria's president, Bashar al-Assad but it also revealed differences with other western capitals.

American officials said the announcement was premature. "We're nowhere near that yet," one said. Washington and London have been more guarded in their dealings with Syrian opposition groups which they see as too fractured and ineffective to form an alternative government [....]

Fed members increasingly concerned about economic recovery ahead of next jobs report and September policy meeting

By Dominic Rushe in New York, Guardian.co.uk, August 27, 2012

The Federal Reserve needs to take action now to bring down the jobless rate, a top Fed official said on Monday.

Charles Evans, president of the Chicago Federal Reserve, said the central bank should not wait for more data. "I don't think we should be in a mode where we are waiting to see what the next few data releases bring. We are well past the threshold for additional action; we should take that action now," he told reporters at a seminar at the Hong Kong Bankers Club.

Last week the Fed released minutes from its last meeting a the end of July which showed its members were increasingly concerned about the slowdown in the US's fragile economic recovery. At their previous meeting in June the minutes showed only "a few members" thought further stimulus would likely be needed [....]

They're a minority at the Republican Convention – particularly on issues like same-sex marriage. But gay delegates and activists support the Romney-Ryan ticket on other issues, and they see signs that they're changing their party from within.

Venezuela has one of the highest murder rates in the world, and illegal firearms are prevalent. More than 130,000 illegal arms were turned into the state last year as part of a pilot disarmament program.

As in many countries in the Western Hemisphere, a vigorous debate is going on in Venezuela about how to control the possession and use of illegal weapons. Amid a climate of extreme ideological polarization and varied political agendas, perceptions and misinformation have shaped much of the opinion surrounding the arms debate in Venezuela. Even the number of guns has become a point of contention; opponents to the Chavez government claim that there exist 15 million illegal arms in a country with a total population of 28 million, while government supporters call such claims exaggerations designed to discredit the president and undercut his credibility on the eve of the October Presidential elections. Ideology aside, and whatever the numbers, the sobering fact remains that in 2010, 94 percent of homicides were committed with firearms—36 percent of the victims were youths between the ages of 15 and 28, and the majority were males from the lower economic sectors. Regardless of political preference, it is clear that illegal firearms are killing Venezuelans [....]

KABUL, Afghanistan – Insurgents attacked a large party in a Taliban-controlled area of southern Afghanistan and beheaded 17 people, officials said on Monday.

A local government official initially said the victims were civilians at a celebration late Sunday involving music and dancing in the Musa Qala district of Helmand province. The official, Neyamatullah Khan, said the Taliban killed the party-goers for flouting the extreme brand of Islam embraced by the militants.

However, provincial government spokesman Daoud Ahmadi said later that those killed were caught up in a fight between two Taliban commanders over two women, who were among the dead. Ahmadi said shooting broke out during the fight but it was unclear whether the music and dancing triggered the violence, and whether the dead were all civilians or possibly included some fighters [....]

WHEN Mitt Romney was governor of liberal Massachusetts, he supported abortion, gun control, tackling climate change and a requirement that everyone should buy health insurance, backed up with generous subsidies for those who could not afford it. Now, as he prepares to fly to Tampa to accept the Republican Party’s nomination for president on August 30th, he opposes all those things. A year ago he favoured keeping income taxes at their current levels; now he wants to slash them for everybody, with the rate falling from 35% to 28% for the richest Americans.

All politicians flip-flop from time to time; but Mr Romney could win an Olympic medal in it (see article). And that is a pity, because this newspaper finds much to like in the history of this uncharismatic but dogged man, from his obvious business acumen to the way he worked across the political aisle as governor to get health reform passed and the state budget deficit down. We share many of his views about the excessive growth of regulation and of the state in general in America, and the effect that this has on investment, productivity and growth. After four years of soaring oratory and intermittent reforms, why not bring in a more businesslike figure who might start fixing the problems with America’s finances?

Following by Keith Humphreys’s eirenic suggestion about how Obama should play the candidate tax issue in a high-minded way, I’ve made an instructive little table comparing the federal income taxes of the Obama and Romney households since 2000.

[....] The centerpiece of Mr. Romney’s proposal is a promise to spend at least 4 percent of gross domestic product on military personnel, procurement, operations and maintenance, and research and development. That would add as much as $2.3 trillion to the defense budget over 10 years from projected 2013 spending levels, according to Mr. Sharp’s analysis.

And yet for all these extra trillions, there’s no sense that this money would produce a more effective security strategy. Linking a budget to the G.D.P. is a bizarre way of addressing defense needs [....]

Mr. Romney is showing no restraint. Even though American forces are out of Iraq and withdrawing from Afghanistan by the end of 2014, his campaign Web site states that he would reverse President Obama’s plan to cut the Army and Marine Corps by 100,000 troops. Doing that, according to Mr. Sharp, would cost at least $41 billion over five years. Just what mission the extra troops would perform is unspecified.

Mr. Romney wants the Navy to increase shipbuilding from 9 ships per year to 15, at a cost of billions more [....]

Guest Op-Ed by Moises Velasquez-Manoff, New York Times, August 25/26, 2012

[Moises Velasquez-Manoff is the author of “An Epidemic of Absence: A New Way of Understanding Allergies and Autoimmune Diseases.”]

IN recent years, scientists have made extraordinary advances in understanding the causes of autism, now estimated to afflict 1 in 88 children. But remarkably little of this understanding has percolated into popular awareness, which often remains fixated on vaccines.

So here’s the short of it: At least a subset of autism — perhaps one-third, and very likely more — looks like a type of inflammatory disease. And it begins in the womb.

It starts with what scientists call immune dysregulation. Ideally, your immune system should operate like an enlightened action hero, meting out inflammation precisely, accurately and with deadly force when necessary, but then quickly returning to a Zen-like calm. Doing so requires an optimal balance of pro- and anti-inflammatory muscle.

In autistic individuals, the immune system fails at this balancing act [....]

[....] A Washington Post-Kaiser Family Foundation poll finds independents are among the most likely to say they are still trying to pick a candidate — no surprise here — but so are cross-pressured partisans who are out of step with their own party on key issues.

Overall, the survey found 20 percent of Americans either cannot choose between Obama and Romney or say there’s a good chance they will change their mind by Election Day. But the survey also found an extraordinary range of swing voters across the 13 different groups of partisans and independents — as little as 5 percent in one group and as much as 58 percent in another [....]

Israel believes the report backs up claims that Tehran has sped up its nuclear project, while the White House insists that findings don’t change the working assumption that there is still time to resolve the crisis diplomatically.

Israel and the United States are split over the significance of a new International Atomic Energy Agency report expected to accuse Iran of installing hundreds of new centrifuges at its underground enrichment facility near Qom [.....]

The French president, François Hollande, has put more pressure on Greece to push ahead with painful reforms after a meeting with the Greek prime minister, Antonis Samaras.

[....] Samaras has been seeking more time to pass reforms, arguing that an extension of up to two years would allow Greece time to improve growth and therefore its public finances.

But Hollande said no decision could be taken on the issue until European ministers have considered a financial report on Greece, which is due to be published by the International Monetary Fund, the European commission and the European Central Bank in September.

The report will be presented to a Eurogroup summit in October and Hollande said Europe needed to make decisions "the sooner the better". "We've been facing this question for two-and-a-half years; there's no time to lose, there are commitments to reaffirm on both sides, decisions to take, and the sooner the better," Hollande said.

Hollande's position echoes that of the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, who met Samaras in Berlin on Friday [....]

By Alissa J. Rubin and Matthew Rosenberg, New York Times, August 25/26, 2012

KABUL, Afghanistan — In small mountain villages on Taliban turf in eastern Afghanistan, Pashtun tribesmen took up arms to fight the insurgents this summer, fed up with their heavy-handed tactics of closing schools and threatening families whose sons had joined the Afghan Army.

“They wanted to make our children illiterate and miserable,” Malik Ghulam Rusal, a district elder, said about the Taliban. “We told them that if you want to wage jihad, go and fight the foreigners, not ordinary people. But they did not listen.”

What began as a ragtag uprising by rural woodcutters and shopkeepers in a few villages in Laghman Province expanded into something extraordinary: in just the past two months, the Taliban presence in the entire district, and then in a neighboring one, has been largely silenced. And in another eastern province, Ghazni, villagers ignited a similar movement to drive the Taliban away.

The uprisings, however, are far from a simple case of outrage growing into action. They spread quickly, but in considerable part because commanders from a rival militant faction, Hezb-i-Islami, saw a chance to gain ground against the Taliban, and because Afghan government officials saw the movement as a valuable opportunity to help local leaders organize against the insurgents.

For close watchers of Afghanistan’s complex factional landscape, the movement has become another case study of a classic Afghan problem that directly challenges the Western goal of a stable country after the 2014 troop withdrawal: [....]

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The Silk Road might have started as a libertarian experiment, but it was doomed to end as a fiefdom run by pirate kings. The Hidden Wiki holds the keys to a secret internet. To reach it, you need a special browser that can access ‘Tor Hidden Services’ – websites that have chosen to obscure their physical location. Sites such as the Hidden Wiki provide unreliable treasure maps. They publish lists of the special addresses for sites where you can use Bitcoin to buy drugs or stolen credit card numbers, play strange games, or simply talk, perhaps on subjects too delicate for the open web. The lists are often untrustworthy. Sometimes the addresses are out-of-date. Sometimes they are actively deceptive.

The murder of opposition leader Boris Nemtsov: “The investigation is considering several versions,” the statements said. The first it listed was: “a murder as a provocation to destabilize the political situation in the country, where the figure of Nemtsov could have become a sort of sacrificial victim for those who stop at nothing to achieve their political goals.” Putin has said he will "personally oversee" the investigation.

GOP Anti-vaxxer: Rep. Barry Loudermilk, a Georgia Republican.....chair of a key congressional subcommittee on science and technology...responding to a woman who asked whether he'd be looking into...if the (CDC) had covered up information linking vaccines to autism. He responded with a rather unscientific personal anecdote: "I believe it's the parents' decision whether to immunize or not…Most of our children, we didn't immunize. They're healthy."

The culture wars continued: Avijit Roy, whose Mukto-Mona (Free-mind) blog championed liberal secular writing in the Muslim-majority nation, attacked along with his wife in Dhaka...Roy, said to be around 40, is the second Bangladeshi blogger to have been murdered in two years and the fourth writer to have been attacked since 2004. Hardline Islamist groups have long demanded the public execution of atheist bloggers and sought new laws to combat writing critical of Islam....